A Surreal Romance
by tie-dye-flag
Summary: While Hero is recovering in The House of Paint, RGB and Madras are left to their own devices. The TV headed monster and the one eyed merchant were clearly an unlikely couple to outsiders, but the pair still found joy in their unusual relationship. (RGB x Madras)


**I do not own TPoH nor characters.**

* * *

_Clik!_

Oh, how RGB hated that sound. That little snap that cut through the air for a split second as Madras plugged him into her paint sucking device. It possessed no echo, but was followed by the uncomfortable feeling of his liquids being drained out of him. However, there wasn't much he could do about it, so he chose to keep his mouth shut and lean back onto the desk. As RGB directed his gaze towards the back of the armchair Hero slept in, he vaguely sensed Madras's quiet stare from behind his TV head.

"…The world is ending, RGB." She broke the silence with her calm voice.

"I know." RGB said with a slight jolt. Then, rethinking his response, he murmured, "I know, Madras." His test pattern mouth was barely an inch from the bottom of his screen in a frown.

"No you don't." Madras leaned over and slipped her arms around him with her head resting on his left shoulder. "You still think there's a way to get out of it." She closed her eye and gave the man a squeeze. "Is it really that hard for you? To just accept it?"

RGB remained silent, simply holding onto Madras's arm with his right hand. He felt the plush plaid fabric of her oversized sweater through his white gloves, which were tattered and torn from the fear that pierced his chest earlier.

"Madras…"

"Mm?"

He brought his hand away and held it out in front of him, examining the cuts though the cheap material before answering.

"…Do you have any spare gloves?"

Madras smirked. "Of all the sweet, beautiful poetry that you could have said, you had to ask about gloves." She paused. "But I might. It'll cost you, though."

"How grand." RGB forced a half-hearted grin, trying not to imagine having any more paint being extracted from him. The merchant chuckled and nuzzled the side of his TV set. Out of her peripheral vision she saw the transparent tube attached to him as it wrapped under his left arm and curled over her hips, where then it connected to the tall flask for distilling paint.

Madras was coyly toying with the collar of his shirt when she noticed how slow the vivid paint flowed through the tube. She heard a faint, bubbling gurgle akin to an upset stomach from behind as well. Alert, she raised her head from her perch and turned around to her prized machine. Instead of running smoothly, it sputtered RGB's liquids through the system abnormally. Her customer's paint squeezed through the pipe and splattered into the device like when a person presses their thumb over the end of a running hose, letting the water stream out with more intensity.

A mental alarm went off in Madras's head as she let go of RGB-who was lost in his own thoughts-and crawled over to shut the contraption off. The filtering process came to a halt as the last of the paint dripped meekly into the fat bottom of the main flask. She pinched the plug under RGB's TV set and carefully detached it with the flick of her wrist.

"Phew…" He sighed and shook his head with crooked antennas. But he knew the amount drained from him was nowhere near three pints worth. Baffled, he glanced over his shoulder where Madras's head was a minute ago. She was now sitting upright and inspecting the flexible tube in her noodle thin fingers.

"...'Something the matter?" He asked.

"It just needs some cleaning, that's all." Madras said flatly as she slid off the desk and rummaged the cabinets below it. She placed a few bottles of peculiar chemicals on top of the desk and a long, cylinder shaped brush attached to a flexible rod of metal. "So you're off the hook for your payment…for now."

RGB breathed another sigh of relief as he stood up. A drop of curiosity slipped into his mind. "I didn't know you had to clean that bleeding device."

"Like I said, you can be so dramatic sometimes." Madras deadpanned as she poured a small amount of one of the mystery liquids down the rubbery pipe. "It's not like it's ever bled any of my customers to death."

"Yet." He added. "I'm surprised that _bloody_ machine hasn't deflated me." His technicolor grin grew wide at his pun, while Madras rolled her eye.

_"Maybe I __**should**__ bleed him dry one of these days…"_ She thought as she slid the brush down the tube. While soapy foam fogged the inside of it, RGB glanced over to Hero. Indistinct flowers fluttered over her head as she wandered around in her dreams. The girl leaned onto one of the living armchair's armrests as it gently smiled at the child's company.

_"What is she dreaming about?"_ he wondered. Eating her favorite food? Running free through a field of daisies? Reliving an innocent story book she read? He stared at her quietly, knowing he wouldn't be able to find an answer. Besides, he didn't dream. They didn't bode well with his system, either, so he didn't care about them. Or shouldn't.

Madras did dream, however. He looked back to the coral haired cyclops, who was occupied with pouring another cleaning substance down the tube. As she leaned over her work, her rose pink bangs threatened to cover her eye, nearly touching her long eyelashes. The mint green and lemon yellow beads of her hair chain dangled besides her cheek, obeying gravity's command. Her adroit fingers with fuchsia painted nails handled the cleaning tools like a master, absorbed with their task.

_"She probably dreams of milking me dry for every last drop of paint."_ RGB mused with a silent smirk, letting cyan and yellow drool drip out of his mouth. She suddenly glanced at him, and he whipped his head away almost like an embarrassed school boy caught staring at his crush. Unknown to him, a quiet smile took over her mouth as she placed the pipe back on the machine.

"It'll take a couple of hours for the sanitizer to work its magic." She said while putting the cleaning chemicals and brush away. "So it looks like we've got some time to kill." Madras tilted her head to the side with a coy expression creeping into her features.

Uh-oh…

"Please don't tell me you want to watch the telly on me again." RGB growled. "I'm not your personal entertainer for chick flicks."

"Calm down, I wasn't planning that."

Planning, she said. Her word choice made the man wary.

"Then what were you 'planning'?"

"Oh, you'll see…" Madras grinned, walking away from the desk while wiggling her finger for him to follow. RGB's color bar mouth formed a hesitant frown before he huffed and walked after her.

"You'd better not be trying to give me another electric shock." He muttered.

"Relax; it's not cold enough for that, anyway." She replied flatly while turning around a corner of a tall shelf stuffed with countless vials. RGB's stare lingered at the oddly shaped bottles with mysterious smog swirling within before tearing his attention away.

He followed Madras through a secluded door he had never really noticed before. Her fingers turned the rusty knob and opened the door, revealing a room that reminded the TV man of a cross between a chef's kitchen and a scientist's lab. The walls were lined with shelves stuffed with flasks and glasses with unembellished counters and cabinets standing below. An island stood in the center of the room covered with mind puzzling tools designed to extract dreams and nightmares into more portable forms. Sitting near a Victorian era farmer's sink was a large crate with barely readable letters printed on the side.

Madras stepped on a stool near the crate, reached into its depths, and pulled out an uncorked glass bottle not unlike the ones used to house nightmares. She looked behind her to find RGB peering over her short stature at the glass in her hand.

"I want you to help me clean these." She shook the vial back and forth lightly between his thumb and finger. Her friend flinched away.

"You know I can't stand water." He hissed, eyeing the nearby brass sink with dread. Just thinking about it…urgh…

"Which is exactly why I'm making you dry them, not wash them."

"Pardon?"

Madras opened a cabinet and fished out a short pile of hand towels. She handed them to him and explained, "I'm going to run some soap and water through these and hand them to you. You just have to dry them off and put them on that rack over there." The cyclops tilted her head to the right, where a wire framework sat vacant for bottles. She then pulled out a sponge on a rod that looked like a fat cotton swab and dropped it on top of the towels.

"Use that to get the inside. And if you need rubber gloves, then you can find them in the cabinet under the sink."

"Alright…" RGB complied reluctantly as he opened the said cabinet and removed a pair of hot pink, elbow length rubber gloves. He pulled off his old ones, stuffed them into his pocket, and squeezed his hands into the thick, stretchy material. The man flexed his fingers, feeling the elastic hug his entire hand.

"They look good on you." Madras joked as she turned the sink handle. Lukewarm water trickled out from the ancient faucet and collected at the bottom, where it was swept down the drain. RGB fought the instinct within him to flee the area as he watched Madras hold the vial under the miniature waterfall. Clear liquid filled the bottle half way before she pulled it away, grabbed a flask holding a syrupy cerise soap, and gingerly let a single drop fall into the vial. She tightly pressed her finger over the top and gave it a good shake.

"I wasn't aware you had to clean these before you filled them with nightmares." RGB said as soapy bubbles formed within Madras's vial.

"It's important to make sure the vessels to hold the nightmares are sanitary before they go in. What kind of merchant would I be if I sold poorly prepared goods?" She dumped out the foamy water and ran more tap water through the vial. After the rinse, she handed it to RGB, who skeptically took it in his hands and rubbed the specialized sponge inside.

"The same principle applies to my machine, too. Sometimes paint residue clogs the plumbing and needs a little maintenance to keep it running smoothly. This doesn't happen very often, though, as it doesn't see much use these days. Until you show up, of course."

"And that's when you try to bleed me to my grave." He sniped, trying to use the wonderful art of conversation to distract him from his chore. She chuckled and proceeded to clean another empty vial.

"Anyway, usually I have it ready before you show up, but you just dropped in at a bad time."

"I see…" RGB rubbed a towel against the outside of his bottle and once polished like crystal, he placed it onto the wire rack just as Madras handed him a new vial to dry.

"This isn't so bad, now isn't it?" The merchant chirped.

"I suppose …" He grumbled, using his willpower not to add on a complaint.

"Consider this your payment for your gloves. Just be glad I'm not making you do laundry."

RGB's fingers froze. Madras possessed no washing machine, so any laundry around her home was done the old fashioned way with a used scrubbing board and a tub of water. Then he'd be up to his elbows in that cursed liquid. Plus, that would mean he'd probably have to wash her…undergarments, and…well…

The man rubbed his cloth furiously against the vial in embarrassment as if it would suppress his not-so-pure thoughts. A knowing smile tugged at the corners of Madras's mouth with her sharp eye on his flustered drying.

"'Didn't know you were that type of man, RGB." She snickered.

"D-do I look like a pervert to you?!" He barked back with as much composure as he could.

"Maybe…" The cyclops shrugged slyly. "…Or maybe not."

RGB sighed, thinking, _"This is going to be a long night…"_

* * *

Bright paint ran through the thin tube smoothly, distilling each color of the rainbow into their flasks. Its paint supplier, RGB, leaned against the painted desk while inspecting his hands in the evening light. The well used fabric of his gloves still clothed his fingers and palm, clashing with his spiffy blazer and pants.

A moment later Madras walked down the nearby stairs, holding a pair of new, white gloves in one hand and carrying a sewing kit the size of a toolbox in the other. She placed the large kit down as gently as she could, but it still landed with a soft thud next to RGB's dress shoes.

"Here are your gloves." The woman plopped them into his hands. While RGB pulled off his old pair, Madras opened her sewing kit and dug through its contents. Her hands emerged holding a fat spool of clear thread and a silver sharp needle. She stuck the needle into her mouth and used her free hand to grab a pair of crimson handled scissors.

RGB stuffed his tattered gloves into his blazer's pocket as Madras climbed on top of the desk and sat behind his shoulders. Placing her scissors down and removing the needle from her mouth, her nimble fingers strung the transparent thread through the needle's eye.

"You're going to have to turn around."

The man obeyed and sluggishly spun on his heels with the front of his shirt facing her. Below his chest the hole through his pale shirt gaped back at Madras.

"Always getting yourself into trouble, aren't you?" She said as she carefully pierced the needle through the cloth and dragged the thread with it.

RGB, instead of coming up with some witty reply, merely shrugged.

"Hold still," Madras commanded. "Unless you want me to stick you with a needle." She continued to close the schism. Her customer didn't dream, so any damage to his clothes by the fears had to be repaired manually. The bodily injuries, however…there wasn't much she could do about that, even if she could see his body.

Twenty stitches later the hole in the shirt was no more. The bottom patch up connected to an older cut just below his black bowtie. Now the entire schism was several inches longer. Madras glared at it with a barely noticeable sense of worry clouding her eye.

She blinked back to her senses, seeing RGB's screen flickering slightly, as if fighting sleep.

"How much longer…?" He groggily questioned.

Madras looked at the machine where his rainbow paint collected at the bottom. "…it's almost done. Just hang in there a little while longer."

"Alright." His low voice gave off an air of weariness. Every drop sucked out of him carried away another bit of his energy. He had to hang onto the desk's edge to stand. Part of him honestly believed he'd faint any second now. The other part prayed that he wouldn't, especially in front of Madras, of all people.

_Ding!_

A high pitched bell rang, and the paint vacuum skidded to a halt with any remaining paint in the pipe collecting into the stomach of the machine.

Madras unplugged the horrid tube from RGB's head. "There, three pints worth. We're all done for now."

"Finally." RGB pushed off the desk, only to receive a dizzy spell through his TV circuits. With a faint groan he grabbed the desk again. Madras raised her flamingo pink eyebrow.

"…Looks like the little hero's still knocked out."

The man raised his head in surprise, and then glanced over to the armchair where the young girl still slept. A soggy trail of drool leaked out of the corner of her mouth, staining the red sleeve of her jacket. Little firework flowers still danced above her brown hair like before, filling the air around her with a dreamy atmosphere.

"…you know there's a chance she won't make it, don't you?" Madras whispered.

"…yes." RGB replied. "Yes, I do."

"Like I said before, I'm a merchant, not a doctor. However," She elegantly slid off the table, walked over to the armchair, and removed Hero's coat before her drool could completely soak it. "If she's hung on for this long, especially after a schism straight through the heart, then…I'd say she's got a fighting chance."

"…I hope so…"

"You? Hope?" Madras blinked with a voice lined with sarcasm. "Since when are you a hopeful figure?"

"I just don't want to start all over again." He huffed. "It's not easy finding a suitable child to be a hero."

The cyclops quietly hung Hero's jacket on the side of the armchair-which blinked curiously at its master-and stared into the empty air before her. She knew better than to probe any further on the matter.

"…anyway, since your little friend here is still sleeping, it looks like the two of you will be staying the night."

"Ah…I see." RGB muttered. He felt like his whole body was running on fumes, barely giving him the strength to fight fatigue.

The man was so lost in his thoughts that he failed to register Madras's voice telling him to follow her up the stairs. Summoning all of the poise he could, he walked over to the merchant and stuck close behind her as they climbed the painted steps.

_"No, don't pass out now,"_ He commanded himself several times over the journey. _"The last thing you need is to faint on a flight of stairs; and no doubt Madras would charge me for the trouble I'd cause her."_

After walking down a dim hallway, Madras opened one of the doors lining the walls. She gestured for him to enter with her wiggling finger. RGB obeyed her directions and found himself in Madras's bedroom. Her queen sized bed (why such a short cyclops needed such a large bed was beyond his knowledge) sat in the middle of the space, sporting ruby colored sheets and feather filled pillows.

"I'll let you sleep here tonight; you're looking a bit green around the vents." Even though RGB couldn't see her face, he could still hear the teasing grin in Madras's voice.

"Ha bloody ha." He lazily sat down at the foot of the bed. The man smirked slightly, letting sticky green ink drip out of his screen. While he kicked off his shoes, he added, "I suppose green around the screen would be more fitting for me."

RGB's hands fiddled with his bowtie but hesitated when the two ends hung limp around his neck. Giving up on fully undressing himself, he scooched himself further up the bed and leaned back, intending to let his head crash into the pillow. However, he felt his TV set fall into something else; something warm with more mass than a cushion. Even more puzzling, a pair of spidery slender legs curled around the sides of his head, placing their feet on his shoulders. He looked up to find Madras's face smiling at him from above.

"Looks like someone's feeling a bit sleepy." She toyed with his ticklish antennas with her left hand and plucked off his boater hat with her right.

"Heh heh, you would be, too, if you had three pints of paint sucked out of you." He let his head sink a bit more into her lap. The man folded his hands over his abdomen and watched her plant his hat on top of her own head. It looked a bit silly, but neither of them cared.

Over the many trials of finding a 'hero', RGB had built an imaginary wall around himself. Not one where he stopped speaking altogether, but the kind that distorted how he talked and acted, like a thick filter. He was a coward, a vulnerable coward, and didn't want the whole world to know. So he faked a classy, sophisticated self to act as his shield. Anytime a ticklish question arose about another one of his 'plans', he'd plaster a smile on his screen with a convincing cardboard wall of confidence. He never 'lied' directly; he just never told the straight truth. Of course, those who knew him well enough still sensed the reality of the situation, but at least he could deceive _himself_ to a point of sanity.

However, Madras was a special case. No, he didn't let his façade fall completely around her, but it did crack open a smidge, and through that atomic sized gap, her presence penetrated inside like a sliver of light. RGB wasn't sure if it did any good, but it did make him feel a slight better.

The man reached up to softly play with her long hair chain that dangled above his knobs. He grew fascinated with her pink pixie cut framing her round face that housed a big, beautiful eye with a yellow tainted year escaping it every now and then. RGB felt her long eyelashes brush against his hand as he continued to rub the green and yellow beads.

"Madras…?" He murmured.

"Mm?"

"May I ask of you a favor?" His screen dulled a fraction sleepily.

"Go ahead," She leaned further over him, closer to his face.

RGB's color bar mouth twitched as if he had bitten his lip in nervousness before speaking. "Can you…stay with me…until I fall asleep?"

Madras didn't even bat her eye. All she did was stroke the side of his TV head and nodded her head up and down.

"I'll put it on your tab, though."

The man chuckled softly. "Why am I not surprised…" His screen flickered with faint mirages of static. Sleep sluggishly worked its way into his system as his sight grew fuzzy. Not into dreams, but simply into a deep shut down mode.

_"If I did dream, I wouldn't mind dreaming we could stay like this the whole night."_

Of course, RGB would never admit that aloud (even if he did, it would only come out as a half awake mumble), but at least he could fantasize for a split second before his body turned off for the night. His muscles and joints relaxed, unintentionally nesting his head deeper into Madras's lap.

The pink cyclops remained true to her promise, not moving an inch from her spot. She gazed at his blurry screen that flickered with static and leaked transparent drool out of the lower edge. It was a mystery to her how whatever dripped out of his mouth never managed to stain his handsome suit. Sticking her head into the clouds for a moment, she leaned back on the bed's painted headboard.

_"If I didn't dream, I wouldn't mind staying like this with you the whole night."_

Of course, Madras would never admit that aloud (even if she did, it would only be lost on RGB's deaf ears), but at least she could fantasize for a few moments before she had to leave and make camp on her living room's floor. Her legs and body retreated, hesitatingly swinging over the side of the bed.

Once off the mattress, she glanced back at RGB, hopelessly lost in his unconsciousness. She rubbed his antenna between her fingers one last time, bent forward, and pressed her mouth against his screen. For that brief peck, a tiny spark of electricity tickled her lips, and a secretive smile took shape. There was no way RGB would know or feel that little kiss; just like him, she had her own act to keep up around others, and only let the mask lower a fraction in his presence.

Finally letting go of the twin wires attached to his head, she tip toed away and out of the bedroom. The lady closed the door in slow motion, trying to minimize the creak that whined from the brass hinges. She crept down the hall and stairs until she reached the bottom floor, where she planned to turn in for the night, as her bed and chair were occupied.

As Madras laid out on the floor and draped a spare red blanket over her body, she let out a prolonged yawn and settled her head into her handy pillow. Soon her mind's eye would be entangled with hazy dreams, a place where all rules and any doubts (not literal ones, but that's another story) could be tossed into the ground and left behind. Madras let a peaceful breath enter her lungs, planning on dreaming of the technicolor coward in her bedroom. Her fanciful notions would take on all sorts of forms; sometimes sweet, sometimes sexy, and sometimes supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

The only regret was very few, if any, of these wishful thoughts could be executed in reality.

That was the problem. Aside from the occasional long visit at her shop like tonight, their lives possessed little to no time for actual dates or opportunities to affectionately enjoy each other's company. Such qualities made their relationship more like a surreal romance.

Then again, how else could you describe a romance between a pink cyclops and a TV headed man? And in a world where human nature's flaws became literal monsters prowling around every corner? Not exactly the definition of a typical couple.

Yes, this was their relationship. A surreal romance for a surreal couple, and that suited them just fine. With a mysterious smile on her face, Madras shut her eye and fell asleep.

* * *

**AN: I never thought I'd ship a man with a TV for a head and a pink cyclops, but TPoH proved me wrong X3**

**Not really sure what to call this pairing, though. There are multiple names floating around; MadRGB, teleVision, Eyetena...or just plain RGB x Madras. Fangirls and boys, take your pick! :)**


End file.
